This article develops a real options model to study the interaction of industry structure and takeovers. In an asymmetric industry equilibrium, firms have an endogenous incentive to merge when restructuring decisions are motivated by operating and strategic benefits. The model predicts that (i) merger activities are more likely in more concentrated industries or in industries that are more expo...

In the recent recession and current economic recovery, policymakers have supported housing prices, expecting that improvement in the balance sheets of banks and consumers will spur economic activity. Considering the period of 1988 through 2006, we document that banks which are active in strong housing markets increase mortgage lending and decrease commercial lending. Firms that borrow from thes...

This paper analyzes how property rights affect the allocation of firms’ available resources among different types of assets. In particular, we investigate empirically for a large number of countries whether firms in environments with more secure property rights allocate available resources more towards intangible assets and consequentially grow faster. We find that improved asset allocation due...

Existing literature focuses on how corporate taxation affects firms’ investment decisions by altering after-tax returns. This paper instead examines how corporate taxation affects investment by reducing the cash flow a firm has available to invest in the current period. I use a sharp nonlinearity in the mapping from pre-tax profitability to taxes created by the tax loss carryforward feature of ...

This article shows that investors financing a portfolio of projects may use the depth of their financial pockets to overcome entrepreneurial incentive problems. Competition for scarce informed capital at the refinancing stage strengthens investors’ bargaining positions. And yet, entrepreneurs’ incentives may be improved, because projects funded by investors with ‘‘shallow pockets’’ must have no...

Financing constrains on investment are mainly important for small privately owned firms. Yet most of the investment literature focuses on the financing constraints of large publicly owned firms. This paper develops a financing constraints test based on a variable capital investment equation. Because it does not require the information about marginal q, the test can be easily applied to small fi...

We investigate the implications of technological innovation and non-diversifiable risk on entrepreneurial entry and optimal portfolio choice. In a real options model where two risk-averse individuals strategically decide on technology adoption, we show that the impact of non-diversifiable risk on the option timing decision is ambiguous and depends on the frequency of technological change. Compa...

We analyze the optimal contract to finance the series of investments of a growing firm. The analysis is based on the need to repeatedly raise funds when informed insiders can expropriate outside investors. The optimal contract can be implemented by a sequence of one-period debt contracts and equity ownership by outsiders. Debt is optimal, as it reduces the expected cost of auditing, while parti...

In this paper we develop a valuation model when there exist two competitive firms that face irreversible investment decisions under the demand uncertainty. We propose a numerical procedure to derive both project values and equilibrium strategies in the duopolistic environment. In numerical examples we consider two different economic conditions, which are labelled first mover advantage and secon...

This paper analyzes the investment timing for team projects. Under demand uncertainty, it is valuable to maintain flexibility in future investment alternatives. However, one party’s flexibility creates strategic uncertainty for another party, which causes the other party to choose a higher level of flexibility. This strategic complementarity leads to delays in investments in contrast to the cas...